Colleen Week: Day 4 (Carrot-Ginger Soup and No-Queso Quesadillas)

Who says you have to have cheese to make quesadillas? Hummus works great, too! These No-Queso Quesadillas are from Colleen Patrick Goudreau’s The Vegan Table, in keeping with my theme for the week. (For those of you just joining me, I am cooking entirely from Colleen Patrick Goudreau‘s three cookbooks this week.) They couldn’t be simpler to make. I made her hummus recipe from the same book, and used a store-bought salsa inside. (My favorite brand, Emerald Valley.) The tortillas are whole spelt.

Here is what they look like on the inside. Ooey-gooey and delicious!

I served these, perhaps somewhat oddly, with Carrot-Ginger soup, also from The Vegan Table. The soup was amazingly rich and creamy, with a perfect balance between sweet and savory, and the flavor of the ginger really shined through. I used my blender to puree this soup to a silky smooth consistency. The secret ingredient in here? Potatoes. I think they are the key to creating such a rich and creamy body to the soup.

The kids particularly enjoyed dipping the “hummus-dillas” into the soup.

I couldn’t resist snapping this photo of our sweet sleeping kitty, Sebastian, while I was cooking. He loves to nap on the top of the refrigerator, where it is warm and cozy and safely out of reach of toddlers.

Hope you are all having a great weekend. I may or may not check in tomorrow…planning to make peanut butter pancakes (from Color Me Vegan) for breakfast, but we’ll be out for the rest of the day. Sunday morning pancakes are the best!